Need to read this through to the end. It's got a twist. It's
about humanizing the homeless with a goal of generating
financial support for them.

Go around to the homeless, tell them you are trying to
raise enough money to send some rich kid to Praque for
the summer. Explain that his dad is
only willing to pay
half
because his mistress just requested a new sports car.

Here's the deal: Some of these homeless people might
say
"Eh, sure why not?" and throw a quarter or so into the
fund
just to "Show the kid a good time."

This would get everybody thinking about charity. "This
poor
disadvantaged person gave a little bit of the paltry
amount
of money he has just to show kindness to somebody
much
more advantaged than him just to be nice. Maybe I
should consider paying that kindness shown by somebody
much worse off than me forward. (Sorry about the
clunky sentence.)

This would be applied in the form of a short
documentary with a
follow up. A Gofundme page would be set up for these
homeless people that showed kindness and generosity
even
though it might not have been based in logic or justice.

It would be an interesting study in human kindness from
the other side. It would also be insanely controversial
(good press) and at the end of the day, it could raise
some
money for some homeless folks.

I think there is already a thriving market in soliciting donations from the struggling classes, in the guise of helping African villagers plant turnips or something, where half the donations go to head office expenses and the other half goes to fund the charity directors children doing a fact finding mission to some African villages.

//I think there is already a thriving market in
soliciting donations from the struggling classes//

I think you're referring to "charities" that rip off
middle class folks under the guise of helping the
poor
but
who simply line their own pockets.

Like the Democrat party.

I had donated to a particular charity for years until
a scandal broke that the guys at the top were
doing their best to make sure most of the money
was going to the organization.

That's the rule of any organization. No matter
what the original job the organization was formed
to perform, the main job becomes taking care of
that organization, even at the expense of the
organization's original goals.

It's a plan to get money donated to the homeless by
showing
that some homeless people are thoughtful and giving,
even
to those more fortunate than them prompting people to
think about being thoughtful and giving to them in turn.

Think I'll put that note on the beginning of the post.

This was clearly fishboned by somebody who either didn't
read the entire thing or doesn't like the idea of raising
money for the homeless.

//That's the rule of any organization. No matter what the
original job the organization was formed to perform, the
main job becomes taking care of that organization, even
at the expense of the organization's original goals.//

I looked into charities a few years ago. In the UK at least,
excellent information is available from the government
on charities. If I remember correctly, outside a handful of
megacharities, the vast majority of charity organizations
consist of 2 or fewer people. The average income of those
organizations floated very close to how much it would
cost to employ the 1-2 people + a few expenses. I came
to the conclusion that these charities were simply people
collecting money to pay themselves to collect money,
with the social benefits of being able to say they ran a
charity for disabled pigeon fanciers. It's human nature
that motivation to collect money would fall off after the
minimum expenses are met, the data looks like that
anyhow.

The megacharities are a slightly different beast. They
seem to be weaponized marketing exercises which
compete for market share. They sell a product, which is a
sort of outsourced moral conscience for evilcorps and
individuals alike. I was at a xmas party for one er,
malignant disease focussed, a charity in 2012 and there
were 4 bottles of Bollinger per 8 person table in a very
expensive London venue, no doubt completely written off
come tax time. When people donate money in the fight
against the disease that killed Uncle John, I doubt they
realize just how much goes to champagne and braying
marketing executives. The charity has an acronym that
might be construed as a version of the word "Crook".

I'm sure the initial motives are all very good, but the
incentives to actually DO anything as a charity aren't well
set out at all. Before you know it, you're undercutting an
Ethiopian well-digging company with subsidized rich kids
on a feel-good jaunt. Don't get me started on charity
runs.

Maybe it hasn't made headlines in Europe (and I don't know
which side you are from Dr.), but the homeless Gofundme
fraud story here in the US <link> has probably greatly
diminished the prospects of success for raising money
through Gofundme using a documentary of this sort.

At the risk of getting super personal, my ex wife started a
cancer charity when she was diagnosed. Although she had
re-married she kept my name and when she passed away
only months after her husband I considered taking over
the organization in her honor and when people would say
"Who
are you to do that?" I'd say I'm Mr. _____, her ex who
remained a friend of her's through the years. However the
idea that even one person on Earth might accuse me of
wanting to make even a dime off of this quickly quashed
the idea in my head, even though I'd make it clear I
wouldn't accept even a single penny, just donating my
time. Just wasn't worth it for me.

Too bad, could have helped some people.

Side note: she has the largest park in her state named
after her since she was very big into philanthropy. She
was very well off. Private jet level well off. Anyway, the
park by extension carries
my last name to this day. Crazy eh? Weird life I've had.

I guess I didn't sell this very well. It's basically an image
update for homeless people who are probably assumed to
be
dishonorable because, well, everything else about them is
broken. But if this image could be updated in some cases,
perhaps
people would be more likely to donate to help the
individuals who are themselves kind and generous to
those other than themselves.

There's at least one famous case where a homeless person
with a great voice over talent got job offers and
assistance once he became a bit of a celebrity. I'll put up
the link. I'm sure you all know him.

By the way, I'm uncomfortable talking about this stuff
because I find many people who broadcast that they're
about helping the poor, the disadvantaged etc are
often strutting, virtue signalling folks that care more
about
looking like they're helping than actually helping.
Socialists come to mind.

Anyway, Christmas is over. I'm going to get back to
minding my own affairs. Anybody wanting to make this
documentary, film student or whatever, would probably
get some press. Be aware however that giving homeless
people
money can be a bad thing if they're using it for drugs or
booze.

//It's basically an image update for homeless people who are
probably assumed to be dishonorable because, well, everything
else about them is broken//The problem lies not in the
observed but the observer. The problem lies in the idea that the
poor deserve to be poor, or are poor because of some regrettable
personal defect of character, and with the associated idea that
the rich deserve to be rich, and that their riches are linked to
the strength of their character. These are not uniquely American
assumptions (cf. UK govts 1979 to date), but they are
exemplified in American discussion of the poor, the rich and
class.

Or, to phrase the question point a different way, why should any
person in the subset of those with the least wealth have to give
up a proportion of what little they have for the purpose of
improving the image that those with more have of those with
less? Why should the poor sacrifice yet more to educate the rich?
The existence of the poor is a lesson in and of itself. That the
rich don't want to learn it is proof that the issue lies other than
with the poor.

OK, my apologies for a comment from a tl;dr place. So it's sort of public relations? 'Tis better to give than receive gives way to giving is a prerequisite for receiving? Maybe it's horrible of me, but I tend to think of a lot of the inspiration porn on the TV news as "public relations for charity clients" as a strategy for "loosening donor purse strings." The editorial assumption seems to be that there are "deserving poor" and "undeserving poor" and the editorial method might pretty much be "cherry pick as much agency caseload data as it takes to find an example of an extremely deserving poor."

Oddly enough, I've never heard the terms "deserving poor"
and "undeserving poor" before which is odd. I guess
there's
an assumption (a completely wrong assumption) that
they're
one homogenous, wretched group of people.

There are good poor people and bad poor people, just
like
there are good rich people and bad rich people. Not sure
what you'd do with that fact with regards to fund raising,
but uncomfortable though it may be, it is a fact. Is it a
useful fact? Ahdhunno.

I've heard it said that these days there's a difference
between "broke" and "poor". Broke is a financial situation,
poor is a state of mind.

In modern times that's largely true. We all come from
peasant backgrounds where starving was a real possibility
at some point, but not a lot of that in the modern world.
Your society has to be so fucked up to suffer mass
starvation at this time in history that starvation is
probably merciful if you're living in such a shithole.

That being said, there are those who can't fend for
themselves who should be taken care of, but if I were in
charge of welfare distribution, I'd need to see a pair of
stumps where your legs were or a birth certificate from
the 1940s. Other that that, we'll feed you as long as
you're really looking for work but don't expect fillet
mignon.

In other words, I wouldn't make "farming" poor people an
industry. I said earlier how any organization will
eventually care about nothing but that organization and if
you have a welfare state where the people in charge
make a good living running its welfare organizations, no
way are they going to want to work towards having fewer
poor people. Those folks are their bread and butter.

Human nature being what it is, what might be perceived as a positive outcome for society as a whole would also be negative for a small portion thereof.

Various infectious diseases have been "conquered" - polio, diptheria, smallpox and whooping cough to name but a few. And there was much rejoicing ...

Consider a charity dedicated to the noble, selfless objective of creating a vaccine against or a treatment for Bloodnok's disease. The charity has a part-paid, mostly volunteer board including celebrity patrons, a small paid staff, funds several University research programmes, and has a loyal legion of tin-rattlers and leaflet-posters.

And then one day, some bloke in a lab in Cambridge is mucking about with recombinant DNA and suddenly realizes that he can make a vaccine for Bloodnok's disease.

Quickly, he files a patent. A major pharma company, scenting money from afar, comes a knocking at the door, offering untold wealth in return for a licence to make the vaccine and sell it at an exorbitant price (to recover the costs of the approval process) to wealthy Westerners.

Soon, Bloodnok's disease is just a memory in the developed world. Production of the previous palliative treatment is run down as there's greatly reduced demand - except in the undeveloped world, where they can't afford it anyway; nor can they afford the highly effective, but pricey, vaccine.

Various University projects lose funding; lots of tin-rattlers have no more lapel badges to sell; the role of financing the now-proven vaccine outside the West falls to existing medical agencies already engaged in such activities, and the Bloodnok's Disease Research Fund is quietly dismantled, its objective having been achieved.

It's obvious from this that there will always be some people who lose out when their organization is too successful ...

Sort of related, I just coined a couple of new names for
goverment types of the kind we have taking over one of
the houses of Congress this week.

"Conunists" or "Fauxshovics". Here's how they work:

1- Get lots of corporate money then run for office
somewhere to the left of Che Guevera.

2- Get more corporate money then act as a front for all
your corporate cronies who paid to get you elected and
give them everything they want.

3- Get still more corporate money and tell the people the
revolution is right around the corner and that they would
have been getting bags of money if it weren't for that
pesky other party that's alway screwing things up.